


some kind of miracle

by escherzo



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Hair Braiding, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Post-179, Slow Burn, passing mentions of other canon relationships (mostly Azu/Kiko)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28061490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo
Summary: “Did you find what you were looking for?” Wilde asks finally, into the stillness of the night, when he had been quiet so long Zolf half-thought he was already asleep.“Yeah,” Zolf says, finding that his voice comes out hoarse. “I think so.”
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 31
Kudos: 106
Collections: Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2020





	some kind of miracle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miri1984](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/gifts).



> Miri, I hope you enjoy! I tried for the softest and sweetest Zoscar feelings I could manage ♥

The strangest thing, Zolf finds, is how easy it all is.

Wilde is by his side at breakfast, carefully picking at a plate of heavy, warming food with delicate unscarred hands, his shoulder pressed to Zolf's, and Zolf finds that he doesn't need to look over to know that there is a small, uncomplicated smile on Wilde's face. _I want to spend the rest of my life with you,_ Zolf thinks but does not say, halfway through a bite of blood pudding, and the thought warms him even as it makes him so painfully nervous he could choke on it. He reaches out and taps his hand against Wilde's once, losing himself in the burning warmth of his skin in this cold city.

Wilde doesn't look at him, but his smile widens, and he reaches out with a pinky to tap the back of Zolf's hand in return. A quick, furtive motion, like sharing a secret. The room, too, is warm and full of life, everyone bundled into furs and chatting away, five different conversations going at once as everyone tucks into the rich meal, and he is far from the only one smiling. Even the kobolds, still fresh with grief, are chatting away to each other, Sassra tucked against Cel and everyone else crowding close, a steady stream of Draconic murmurings and tiny, clawed hand gestures and occasionally, a smile from Cel as they reach out to pet the scales at the top of Sassra's head or interject with a sweeping hand gesture of their own.

He and Wilde don't say anything, but all at once, he finds that they don't need to. He still doesn't have the shape of all of this, not yet, but for the first time, they can just exist in each others' space without having to make it a challenge or a competition or something that's about _the mission_ , the only thing that had kept either of them going for months. They're alive. Right now, alive is all he can ask for.

“Azu left with Kiko,” Wilde says later, pitched low just for Zolf to hear as he reaches out to pull a pot of gravy closer to his plate. He glances over, and his eyes are sparkling with the mischief of gossip not yet shared, and Zolf finds the same thing bubbling up in him. He grins, all teeth.

“Yeah?” Good for them. They'd spent days on the ship meeting each other's glances, stealing quiet moments. Something new and fresh that they didn't know what to do with yet. It's... kind of nice, really, now that he thinks about it, that even though he can't put into words properly what he and Wilde are, it's not nearly so unsettled as all of that. He thinks, for a brief moment, of his parents. It's been a long time since he's thought about them. They'd been together since they were teenagers, and unconsciously mirrored each other's moments. Knew when the other was about to speak. A quiet, contented synchronicity born out of companionship so settled it had its own language.

It's strange to think that's what he has. Or could have. He's not said _those_ words—not asked, “do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?”--but he thinks Wilde might understand it anyway.

“I think,” Wilde continues, his eyes still shining with mischief, “they might be going on a date.”

“Well, hope Azu's having a good time of it,” Zolf says, and lets himself wonder, for a moment, what dating is like. He's never actually done it, not properly. Never had enough interest to put the effort in with a stranger; the handful of times he's been with anyone, it's been someone who was already a friend first. Someone he already trusted.

“Mm,” Wilde agrees, and reaches over to steal a bit of pudding off Zolf's plate, and Zolf slaps the back of his hand entirely on reflex, but doesn't stop him.

He breathes out, slow and steady, and for the first time in as long as he can remember, he thinks he might be truly happy.

*

“We've got some time,” Zolf says later, once the breakfast dishes have been cleared away. He went back to the kitchen to help, of course; he knows a gracious gesture when he sees one, but he doesn't like feeling _useless_ , either. His hands are still soapy with suds, the pads of his fingers wrinkled. Wilde is tucked into a corner, cuddled up on a pile of soft furs with one leg sticking out at an angle that should be uncomfortable but doesn't seem to bother him, like an overgrown cat, the sunlight streaming down on his face, and Zolf is struck, again, by how strange it is to see him without his scar. Even with the shock-white of his hair, he looks so much _younger_. Like the man they met so long ago, a wild flash of color and personality with a quip for every occasion.

He looks at Wilde and smiles, and doesn't want to drown him in a bucket, so. Things have changed a bit on that front.

“Mm,” Wilde agrees, glancing over to the others. They're all occupied enough; Carter is uncharacteristically quiet, tucked against the wall with a notebook in hand, and an extremely red-faced Barnes is at his side, staring down at his hands like he's not sure how to process the existence of his own body. Once in a while, he glances over to the chattering cluster of Cel and kobolds and grows redder still. Something to revisit later, maybe. “We could go for a walk.”

“Where?” Zolf asks, and Wilde looks him over, considering.

“Anywhere,” he says, with a flick of one delicate hand. “We haven't seen this city properly. Let's go out on the town.”

There's no rush. There's no reason they _can't_. There is still a world to save out there, but until they have a working ship, all they can do is take this moment to breathe and relax, and the warmth in his chest swells. He reaches out a hand to Wilde to help him up and Wilde takes it; he doesn't let go of Zolf's hand for a long moment, and even after he does, the heat lingers. Zolf presses his fingers to his own palm, feeling the lingering echoes of the touch.

The city is a whirlwind of activity; there's a bustling market full of people and things that aren't people, but still seem to be moving around with the rest, animals and trees and creatures he doesn't even have names for. So many of them have white hair like his own. There are trees with branches that look like birch interspersed with the darker lines of oak. Foxes who have gone snowy-pale. He thinks he might have seen a kobold with white horns that was not one of theirs darting in and out of the crowd. The—resurrected, because he has to give a word to them and doesn't know of a better one, are not nearly as bundled up as the rest, who cover up in heavy furs and occasionally glance, shuddering, up to the sky above as a chill breeze passes through. The resurrected seem not to notice.

The world around them is a riot of color and activity, hundreds of people bustling past each other and talking at once, and it brings a lump to his throat, thinking of the ruin of Europe and the strange, silent eyes of the blue-veined people standing together shoulder to shoulder. This city is _alive_. Alive and well and untouched by the world outside it, and he doesn't know quite what to do with it.

“I've missed it,” Wilde says quietly, in a voice pitched just for Zolf, and glances down at him. His eyes scan over the crowd, and he reaches out a hand and waves it, long fingers working in the air and creating a tiny, translucent butterfly in vibrant gold perched on the tip of his index finger, and then with another flick, it takes flight and darts out into the air above. Zolf doesn't know if he means his magic or a world that isn't broken.

“Yeah,” he says, and his voice comes out gruff, and he has to pause a moment to swallow against the lump that threatens to crawl up his throat. “Yeah, me too.”

The people in the marketplace give an occasional smile or a nod, but mostly don't speak to them; even as big of a city like this, nearly everyone acts as though they know each other. The two of them are an unknown quantity. Zolf wonders what they all make of him and Wilde--strangers with matching white hair and faces too young for it to be natural. 

Wilde flits between stalls, looking at shining glassware, homemade jewelry, a display of pastries with glaze glittering in the light, and Zolf runs as fast as his small legs can carry him to keep up, but before long, he realizes that Wilde isn't just lingering because he wants to see what's in the stalls. He's giving Zolf time.

“Thanks,” Zolf says under his breath, standing before a stall selling bottles of wine, with two shopkeepers that are paying no attention to them and are instead excitedly chattering about the small, bright little spheres in their hands. He wonders for a brief moment where on earth they both got a handful of marbles; no one is selling them.

“Do keep up,” Wilde says, and laughs at the way it makes Zolf's brow furrow, and Zolf finds himself smiling back despite the fond annoyance bubbling up in him. Neither of them have anything to trade in this place, not really; Zolf left his bag back with the rest of his things, and so they are mostly empty-handed. Maybe, he thinks idly, they'd let Wilde trade a song for something small. He'd like to hear that.

Past the bustle of the market stalls there is a garden, a hundred different kinds of flowers blooming in a cacophony of color, with a fountain in the center gently misting them all, and Wilde slows his pace to match Zolf's as they enter. There are a handful of people milling about the park: two younger men who are keeping close to each other as they move, a tiny, yawning infant tucked into a sling on one of them's front, an older couple with hands clasped tightly together, a teenager running through on her own, full of vitality, her bright white hair streaming behind her as she jogs. An old man sitting at the fountain, letting the water stream down onto his hand as he looks at the sky. And somewhere, just out of the corner of his eye, a flash of bright pink armor.

“There's the date,” Wilde stage-whispers to Zolf, and Zolf cranes his neck to get a good look. Azu and Kiko are absorbed in a chess game, the remnants of a picnic lunch and a half-finished bottle of wine next to them, and even from here, he thinks Azu's winning. Kiko is trying to smile, and every time she looks at Azu her face goes soft and a little gooey, but there's a tension to her that she's not entirely suppressing.

“Azu's doing well,” he whispers back, and nods to Kiko's face. How she's trying very hard to not take it personally that she's doing badly. He grins at Wilde like they're the kids at the back of the temple, and Wilde waves a finger to cast a tiny heart made out of smoke into the air that drifts away on the breeze.

“Showoff,” Zolf says, shaking his head, but Wilde is only just hiding the sheer joy of being able to do magic again, and so he can't begrudge him a little bit of showmanship. “I remember it, you know.”

“Remember what?” Wilde turns away from Azu and Kiko and strides forward, just slowly enough that Zolf can keep pace.

“What it's like to lose your magic,” Zolf says, and he keeps his voice soft. “After—Poseidon, and all.”

“I don't know that it's quite the same,” Wilde admits, and his fingers brush Zolf's arm. “I lost—I knew it was there. I couldn't _access_ it, but I knew that if I took off the shackles, it would hurt, and it would... end poorly for me, in the long term, but it was still there. It was still in me. I didn't say no to a god.”

“Yeah,” Zolf says, and when Wilde's hand slides down his arm to his hand, instead of patting it, he lets Wilde tuck their fingers together. Wilde's hand feels so warm in his, and his heart beats faster. “Dunno. I didn't have to _learn_ anything. I just got it. Had to work for it, sure, but not in the way you did. It always felt like... I thought I was doing the right thing, until I wasn't, and then I didn't know the shape of anything anymore. I didn't die, y'know.”

“I know,” Wilde says, and his free hand brushes through his shock of white hair. “But—you did, in a sense.”

“Spiritual death,” Zolf says, focusing on moving his feet forward. On the steady, heavy thud of his prosthetic legs on the stone path of the gardens, so different from the strange, fluid motions of the ones he used to have. “I ain't died, but on some level, guess it counted for enough.” He shakes his head. “Figures you'd have to do it properly to get yours back. You always did like being dramatic.”

“It's what I'm best at, darling,” Wilde says, his tone lilting and pleasant, but without a hint of a joke to it, and Zolf flushes at the _darling_ , even as he tries to tell himself to not read into it too deeply.

“Glad you've got it back and all that,” Zolf says, low and quick, half-hoping the ambient sounds of chatter will drown out what he's saying.

“I'm glad you do too,” Wilde says, squeezing his hand. “You've got something to hope for.”

“Yeah,” Zolf says, and does not look up at Wilde. “We'll figure it out. The world. Everything.” _Half of my hope was knowing you'd be fighting with me, and so we'd have a chance,_ he does not say, although he thinks on some level Wilde knows it.

“Yeah, we will,” Wilde says, and does not ask him the question he asked over and over, in the early days, _how is that possible? Are **you** a god now?_ It's a question he'll have to reckon with someday. He's not quite ready for it today. He can bring one person back from the dead. He's in a city full of people who have been given a second, or third, or fourth chance to live in the world around them and try to help it be a better place. That's enough to hope for, for the moment.

They stroll through the garden, hand in hand, and lapse into a comfortable, familiar silence. Like they've been doing this every day of their lives.

*

“We need to discuss what comes next,” Sohra says, and so they all follow to the meeting place, the crew clustered into the back of the room as the council they stand before begins to organize. There is a price to be paid. They know that much. A price to pay, and a future to map out, and Zolf wishes, for a brief moment, that Wilde was beside him for this, but he's still the first mate, and Earhart is taking up his attention. Wilde is beside Carter, and they do not speak, but the look that passes between them makes him think there's a conversation happening there that he is not privy to.

“We want you to understand what you coming here means,” the young man says, standing before them, a nervous lilt to his voice. He sways faintly from side to side, and one of the elders reaches out to put a hand on the small of his back, steadying him. “There is a price that you have paid, and others that you will pay in the days to come. Death... means something different here. We require your understanding of this. The awakened know of this already. They can feel it inside them. The rest of you should understand it as well.”

One of the elders at his side stands and continues, in a voice weathered by age but not lost to it, low and gentle, “They are connected now. To this city. To the people in it, and to each other. They will never lose this. They may struggle in places that are too hot; they are adapted to the world we live in now. They will always know, in the way that you know that your hand is your own, what the ones they were awakened with experience. They will know when they wake, when they sleep, when they cry, when they feel pain. The connection is not as deep with the rest of our community, but it remains. A thread tying us all together to understand the world around us through the eyes of another. We believe that this is right, but it is not without pain. The loss of one is the loss of many.”

He takes a moment to steady himself, and when he closes his eyes the lines on his face almost seem to deepen, old pain stored within him bubbling to the surface.

“We do not require that you stay,” he says, quieter. “But it is customary for those of our community to come back to us at the end of their days, when they are ready to pass on to the world beyond, so that we may share in our mourning. And so we would ask if any of you are willing. We will not force you.”

There is barely a moment of hesitation, and then Sassra steps forward. “I'll do it,” she says, and the elder nods, settling back down into his chair. Cel quietly reaches out to rest a hand on their shoulder and squeezes, and when Sassra looks up Cel nods down at her. Sassra nods back, silent understanding passing between them.

“I will too, if—if that's alright, at least,” Cel says, stepping forward to join Sassra.

“You will still pass on into the world beyond that is yours,” he says with a nod, folding his hands in front of him. “But you will not be alone there either. Bringing someone back leaves a trace on you as well; the others of this community, those who have seen the world beyond, can choose to share your endless dream with you if they so choose.”

They nod, as solemn as Zolf has ever seen them. “That's alright,” they say, and then take a step backwards to rejoin the crew. “It might be... a long time for me, if that's not a problem.”

He shakes his head. “Of course not.”

“There is, of course,” another one of the elders says, his voice scratchy, his words sounding almost painful to force out through his withered throat, “another matter to discuss beyond that. You have a ship that needs to be repaired, yes?”

“We do,” Earhart says, stepping forwards, her hands on her hips, a light of challenge in her eyes. “We still need to get to Svalbard.”

“And we will help you,” he says gently. “That is not in question. But when we give of our resources to do so, we would ask that you would give in exchange. We have tradesmen. Crafters. People who have other duties that normally must be attended to, and must be diverted to facilitate this. We ask only that you help with what they would have been undertaking in exchange.”

The fight goes out of her all at once, and she crosses her arms and nods, short and sharp. “We can do that. Just tell us when and where.”

“We will,” he says, and then closes his eyes, settling back against his chair. “We are moving towards the north now. It will get you part of the way to your journey. But we will not be able to take you the rest of the way. Those of us who are not dwarves are... not as welcome there. We have traded with them in the past, and so they will not fight us, but they are right to be protective with the crisis at their doorstep. I have heard... some of what has befallen Europe, in the past few days.”

“Europe's gone,” Zolf finds himself saying, and Wilde moves closer to him, close enough that he can feel the heat of his body. It makes it easier. “We're trying to figure out what we can to put it right.”

“And we have no wish to experience what has befallen them for ourselves,” the elder says. “We believe it has not reached Svalbard, but we are safe as we are here. We will not bring you the rest of the way. The rest of the journey is your own to take.”

“That's fine,” Zolf says. “Like the captain said. Tell us when and where and we'll help. We're not going to—put you all at risk.”

The young man in the center nods. “Then it is settled,” he says, and at the last word, his voice cracks, and he flushes. “We will call upon you in the coming days to assist where you are needed. Who on your ship understands its function? Who can put it right?”

Cel and Sassra raise their hands in unison, and a moment later, the rest of the kobolds join. Zolf puts a tentative hand half-up; he doesn't understand the mechanics, but they will still need more power to put the engines right.

“Understood,” Sohra says, closing her eyes and raising her hands up. “We will call upon you. Go in peace.”

“Right,” Zolf says, taking a deep breath. “Thank you.”

They leave the chamber in a cluster, crowding through the doorway, and Wilde meets Zolf's eyes just for a moment. “You okay, Zolf?” he asks, and Zolf nods, the tension bleeding out of his bones all at once. They could have asked for anything. Would have been right to. Could have demanded that Wilde _stayed_.

But they didn't.

“Thought they might have made you all stay,” he admits, trying for honesty instead of dancing around things that feel difficult. It's intensely awkward, but it's worked out for him so far this week.

Wilde smiles. “You'd have a harder time getting rid of me than _that_ ,” he says, resting a hand on Zolf's shoulder, and Zolf leans into it entirely without meaning to, the side of his face brushing Wilde's hand.

“Good,” he says, and blows out a long breath. “You'd better be sticking around. After I went to all that trouble.”

Wilde grins in lieu of an answer.

*

The work on the ship is hard, but satisfying. Zolf spares his talents part-time to rework the stone structures of the city, carefully casting with his palms pressed up against the structures to reshape them, and sometimes he's pulled in to carry heavy loads back and forth between building sites, or heal injured workers, or simply create enough fresh water that no one has to seek out the rain barrels to retrieve extra. There are no _wells_ here; they're on the back of a bear. It's good work. Satisfying. He can feel the ache in his muscles every day and finds it a pleasant distraction from thinking about the world beyond.

Wilde is not much for shipbuilding. They put him to work some; there are a handful of children in this strange city full of the awakened who have magic within them, and he and Hamid are tasked as teachers, fumbling through the explanations of illusions and fires, and it is tiring work too, but in a very different sort of way. At night, they go to the bunkhouses together, and Zolf listens to Wilde swear about how Hamid knows _literally nothing_ about some magical theory, and can't teach it worth a damn as such, even if all the students love him because he's so sweet to them. It makes him laugh more than anything. There is one child, who in the right light seems to almost disappear into the breeze, who has magic like Hamid's, and Wilde has given up trying to teach them or trying to get Hamid to properly explain the theories of why they worked together and just paired them up.

It feels natural, in a way that he didn't expect, to come together at the end of a long day. To sit together in the bunkhouse, Wilde doing up his pyjamas as Zolf sits in the corner, curled up with his legs off and his thighs tucked underneath him, reading. He half-acknowledges Wilde's complaints, a smile playing at the corners of his lips, because genuinely, with everything he's seen, it's more funny than anything else.

“Still having trouble?” he asks, turning the page, his eyes skimming over the words as the heroine finds that she must climb the tallest mountain in the kingdom to rescue her love from the beast, and Wilde sighs and flops down onto the bed.

“I'm fine,” Wilde says, in the way he does when he is entirely lying, and Zolf looks up from his book just a moment to raise an eyebrow at him. “... It's... we'll work it out,” he finishes finally, and then flops again, just for the effect of it.

“Mm,” Zolf agrees, and turns another page.

“Why do you like those so much, anyway?” Wilde asks, starting to worm his way under the covers. “I've read them, they're...” He hesitates, and then clearly decides to opt for the polite route. “Well. I suppose I wouldn't call them to most peoples' tastes.”

Zolf thinks about it for a moment and then slides the old strip of cloth he's been using as a bookmark into place and closes the book. “It's comforting,” he says finally, and it takes work to make his way over to the bed with his legs off, but his arms have grown strong enough that he's able to hoist himself with a little help, and Wilde is always willing to do that. It's more comfortable to sleep with the prosthetics off. They're useful, in their own way, but they also _ache_ sometimes, impossible to distinguish between phantom limbs and aching sockets. “There's always a happy ending. There's misunderstandings, or something to fight, but at the end of the day, it all ends up—okay. It doesn't end with pain, and all that.” He hesitates, stripping out of his overshirt and tossing it to the side of the bed. “Love’s easy in books. You find someone you like, and it just _works_ in the end. Everyone finds what they're looking for.”

Wilde doesn't say anything for a long moment, until after Zolf is in his sleep clothes and tucked into bed beside him and the lights have been blown out. It just feels _strange_ to be apart for the entire night these days, a strange, itching anxiety under his skin at the thought of Wilde being out of his space for too long, and when he crawls in under the covers with the heat of Wilde at his side, it makes the tension bleed out of him.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Wilde asks finally, into the stillness of the night, when he had been quiet so long Zolf half-thought he was already asleep.

“Yeah,” Zolf says, finding that his voice comes out hoarse. “I think so.”

“Good,” Wilde says. He wiggles a bit closer, the bed bowing under the weight of him, a long line of heat all along Zolf's front, and Zolf reaches out a tentative hand to rest at the curve of Wilde's waist. “Good.”

“Goodnight, Oscar,” Zolf says softly, and Wilde reaches up with a careful hand to tuck Zolf's arm around him properly. He can hear the smile in Wilde's voice as he echoes the _goodnight_.

He can't quite put a shape to this, even now, but he knows, with bone-deep surety, that he has never felt anything quite like this before, and would not trade it for all the gold in the world. No matter what this is. Wilde drifts off to sleep first, his breathing slowing and gentling to quiet snores, and his chest slowly rises and falls, his back against Zolf's chest, and his heart aches so badly that he has to squeeze his eyes shut against the pain of it.

He doesn't know what to call them, but he knows that there is nowhere else, in this moment, that he would rather be.

*

Within a week, the airship is up and running again. It still has patches of vibrant technicolor from the aurora, and there is still a deep gash visible from where it crashed through the trees and broke, even with all of the repairs, but it is as sealed as it needs to be. Damaged, but not broken. Zolf runs a hand along the hull, feeling the places where the wounds have been patched over with love and care and a dozen different hands trying to make things _better_ , and feels a deep, aching kinship with it for a brief moment, so strong it nearly takes his breath away.

He almost doesn't want to leave. They've settled into a comfortable routine here, on the back of the bear, days filled with hard work and lively company, a vibrant, living place that is not touched by the damage of the outside world or the looming terror of being taken over by something _else_. They gathered together every night for mealtime, and after a few days, Sohra's daughter started joining them so Azu could teach her marbles, and the mood was as light as he'd ever felt it. And at night, he tucked himself in alongside Wilde, a hand slung over his waist to reassure himself that the body against him was alive, vibrantly alive and breathing and full of magic bubbling up to the surface. It is safe. Comfortable. But they've still got a world to save, and so he lets that go and boards the ship, praying to something he barely knows the shape of that they will make it to Svalbard with no further damage.

There is routine on the ship too. After the initial ascent, as he holds onto the guidelines and desperately tries to not be sick over the side of the ship as they all strain against the speed of it, after everything settles, he's just back to being the first mate on a vessel he knows like the back of his hand now. He sees Wilde sometimes, but he doesn't keep as close as in the city; Zolf moves from post to post, making sure the ship is running properly and the engines won't go out, checking the crew for signs of fatigue or adjusting the steering, everything so contentedly mechanical about it that he finds he has far too much time to think.

His thoughts, of course, end up at Wilde again. Wilde, who is still down below in the cabins, reading or practicing magic, in the moments where they're not passing through lingering patches of aurora that briefly make parts of the ship come awake. After one, he thinks he sees Cel having an extended conversation with a keg, and decides he's best trying to not pay attention to any of that. But they are fleeting, now, only patches, nothing so significant that they would have to redirect their path or worry about significant damage to the ship.

He would like to have something to think about that isn't just Wilde. The shock-white of his hair that now matches his own, his long, slender fingers, the curve of his thin waist, because no matter how much Zolf tries to cook to make sure he's fed properly his body never seems to quite acknowledge it. His soft smile, no longer a ruin with a scar running through. Sometimes Wilde stares into the mirror and traces a finger over where it used to be with a strange look on his face, when he thinks people aren't looking, dwelling on it again even with the physical reminder missing.

The thing is—he's genuinely never been really, properly, attracted to anyone before. For the longest time, he'd assumed he just wasn't capable of it, and he still doesn't quite understand it in the way that the others do. It's almost frightening in its intensity. He's not had years to build up a tolerance. And it's more complicated than just attraction, even if he can admit to himself that that is the most likely explanation for what he's feeling. The buzzing, electric feeling under his skin when he glances over at Wilde and his eyes fix on the way his shirt is loose and unbuttoned. The lingering thoughts about what those long, slim fingers could do to him.

Underneath all of that, though, is something else. They still share a bed here, on the airship; in the dead of the night, Zolf tucks himself along Wilde's back and, after Wilde has fallen asleep, presses his face to the back of his neck and aches with feeling. That part isn't—sexual. He just wants to be close, all the time, so much that he hurts with it. Wants to memorize the smoothness of Wilde's skin, the steady thump of his heartbeat, the way his curls go all mussed in the mornings when he wakes up, before he can prestidigitate himself perfect again.

 _I think I'm properly in love with you,_ he does not say, because he's not sure he's ready to say it, or that Wilde is ready to hear it, and so he holds Wilde close, arm tucked protectively around his waist, and just listens to his slow, steady breathing instead.

*

“We'll be in Svalbard soon,” Zolf says, his thighs crossed on the bed and his prosthetics off, and Wilde obediently folds to the floor in front of the bed, letting Zolf gather his hair together with careful fingers. He gathers the strands and tucks them together, smoothing out the flyaway curls, and spares a glance to the ribbon sitting beside him on the bed.

Dwarven plaits are symbolic. Carefully chosen. He knows which one he wants, as he carefully finger-combs the longer strands of Wilde's hair into one portion and then sets to work dividing it back out into three. It means a number of different things—love, loyalty, an unshakeable bond. He's heard enough about Svalbard to know that the others might be... less welcome than him. But for Wilde at least, he can make his own claim obvious, and maybe that will help.

“Do you have family there?” Wilde asks, tipping his head back to give Zolf better access, and Zolf catches a portion of his hair between two fingers and sets to the work of weaving the intricate pattern into his hair. It's just long enough to braid, but every time he tries to gather it all, there are a handful of strands that escape.

“Distant,” Zolf offers, biting his lip as he crosses one strand over the other. “Not people I'd know well enough that they'll let us in the front door.”

“It's worth a try,” Wilde offers, and tries to turn his head, and Zolf tightens his grip on his hair. “... Right. My apologies, should let you work.”

“You should,” Zolf agrees, thick fingers working over the delicate strands of hair, and slowly, a shape begins to form, an intricate knot shaped like interlocking fingers. When he and Feryn were very young, they would stay up late in the front room of their tiny house curled up against each other, and their father would slowly, reverently braid their mother's hair with this braid in the low candlelight before bed so that her wild mane of curls wouldn't bother her as she slept. Someday, he thinks, he'll tell Wilde why this is the one he picked.

His father used to sing as he did it, a low, bassy rumble of a voice rising and falling with an old folk tune he's never known the name of, and as his fingers weave the hairs together he finds himself echoing it, his own voice rusty with disuse but still dipping down to the low notes, his accent thicker than Wilde has ever heard it.

“Who's Caroline?” Wilde asks, when Zolf pauses, halfway through a braid, and Zolf smiles.

“That was my mum's name,” he says, and hums another bar under his breath. “Don't think much of the words, to be honest, but she always liked that there was a song with her name in it.” He finishes another plait and leans down on impulse to press a soft kiss to the base of Wilde's skull, gentle against the thin strands of his white hair. Wilde sighs and presses back against it, relaxing against the bed.

“I've never heard you mention her,” Wilde says after a moment, his head still tipped back. Pliant in Zolf's hands.

“Don't remember her that well,” Zolf admits, and goes back to his soft humming, skipping over the words that have faded out to distant memory. His song peters off into silence, and as it does, Wilde pauses for a moment and then begins to sing a song of his own as Zolf finishes the last of the braids. It's in a language he can't place, the tune slow and haunting, settling into his bones and making him think of rolling green hills and the vast, open skies of home.

Zolf finishes the braid as the song slows and tapers off, tying it off with the ribbon as carefully as he can, and asks, quiet, “What was that?”

“An old song from home,” Wilde says, turning his head to look at Zolf as he completes the last of the knots and lets go. There's something complicated and open on his face that Zolf can't quite place. “I should teach you Gaelic.”

“I should teach you Dwarven,” Zolf says, and when Wilde reaches out to take Zolf's hand and draw it to his cheek, Zolf allows it, fitting his fingers to the curve of the delicate cheekbone. “That's...” He swallows. “It's for family.”

Wilde smiles, and his eyes are as bright as Zolf has ever seen them. He nudges his head to the side against Zolf's hand. “I'd like that.”

He doesn't make a move to get any closer, and so they linger there, Zolf's hand on his cheek, Wilde on the floor, head tilted up to meet his eyes, until from somewhere further into the ship, there is a great crash, and Zolf swears and lets go, reaching for his legs to get them put back on so he can go see what the trouble is.

Wilde watches him go, one hand on the braid at his neck, his fingers feeling out the plaits.

*

Zolf doesn't know quite what he was expecting from Svalbard. It wasn't for it to feel so intensely like _home_.

He hasn't been around so many dwarves since he was a teenager. They're everywhere, milling about the streets in the strange underground city, moving in and out of doors hewn roughly into the stone, a constant buzz of activity, and for the first time in as long as he can remember, he doesn't have to look _up_ at a crowd. The crew came in because he went first, fumbling through explanations as best as he could and praying that his heritage would matter enough to get past the assortment of everyone else behind him, and instead of throwing the lot out the dwarves had smiled and beckoned them all in.

They'd been kept in a quarantine cell for a week as soon as that happened, but that was to be expected. It was practical. Safe. He would have done the same for any of them. And the cell was a wide one, big enough to crowd the whole crew in, even if on reflex most of them piled on top of each other, taking comfort in body heat and proximity. The kobolds claimed one corner and welcomed Cel and Hamid in, and everyone else took the other three, and Zolf lent his book around until Wilde sighed and reached a hand out and began to read in that low, lovely voice of his, to the entire cell all at once. He was good at character voices. Better than Zolf had been expecting. He lost himself in the story, and in the way Wilde told it, in the way his smooth, lilting voice rose and fell at the words, and before he knew it, everyone else was entranced as well and the days slipped away like water.

And after that, Svalbard is open to them. They're given quarters in the only inn available, a run-down old place dusty with disuse, because these days no one comes to them unless they were there to trade and then leave. There were other visitors, he's told, the innkeeper tripping over his words and tugging at his own beard. They didn't make it out of quarantine. But the inn has enough rooms for all of them, rooms with wide beds piled high with thick furs, with no windows to see the outside world. Small. Cozy. He can't help but think of the corners of the mine he would tuck into when he felt tired, as a child, and the comfort of solid stone against his back.

Wilde has no trouble here. Zolf had expected _everyone_ to have trouble, apart from him, at least, but they got a good look at Wilde when they brought him in for quarantine and nodded in understanding, their eyes flicking from Zolf to Wilde and back again. Sometimes, when Wilde and Zolf are wandering the streets in the week they have before they can meet with the councilors that are in charge of the seed bank, he hums the song that Zolf taught him before they landed, and once in a while, some of the people of this place join in. Their low, rumbling voices harmonizing with him.

Zolf tries to stay with him as much as he can. Svalbard is an ancient settlement, set up fifty years after the fall of Rome, when all of the dwarves fled north to escape the chaos that the world had become before it spilled over into the places they lived, and they have been wary of outsiders ever since. Zolf is protection. A symbol that the crew is _his_ , and so should be given open passage.

He thinks of the plait that he painstakingly touches up for Wilde every morning, cross-legged on their shared bed, and what it means. What it shows. Wilde is not the only one with the plait, he realizes on their third day out of quarantine. When he looks, properly looks, midway through haggling over food that isn't just rations at one of the stalls, the shopkeeper tugging at his beard and scowling at him as he tries to make the point that meat simply isn't worth _that_ much, he can see couples hand in hand walking through the market with at least one of them wearing the careful knot he'd tied into Wilde's hair. Some of them have rings as well. Some of them don't. They seem to be treated the same regardless.

“I think they think we're married,” Wilde says mildly on the fifth day, after they've retired back to the inn for the night and are properly alone, and Zolf flushes to the tips of his ears.

“Yeah,” he says, and his voice comes out much more gruff than he intends, “they'll do that. It's not—exactly a marriage braid?”

“Not _exactly_?”

“I, um, well, it's.” Zolf settles onto the bed and gestures Wilde over to undo his braid, and the gentle motions of it help to steady himself some. “All of our braids—mean something. Trust, strength, something like that. This one is... My dad did this one for my mum when I was a child. It's something like--” He loops his fingers gently through the knot, loosening it piece by piece. “Loyalty. An unshakeable bond.”

He takes a deep breath, willing his nerves to hold. What they have between them is so easy, except for in moments like this, where he pushes at the boundaries of it and has to let himself focus on the hope that the structure will hold.

“... and love,” he says finally, and Wilde goes very still. He doesn't say anything, and Zolf's heart beats faster, a sick little twist at his gut as the silence continues. “Now you know. Don't—go getting a big head about it.”

He brushes the last curls free, and Wilde turns to look at him. His face is open, his eyes wide, and there is a faint smile at the corners of his lips.

“... Did you just want to make me say this one too,” Zolf says, and Wilde's grin widens. “Yes, of _course_ I love you, you _bastard_.”

“It's good to know,” Wilde says, and he's still smiling as he shifts, tucking his legs up under him so he can turn and face Zolf properly. He leans down and presses a soft kiss to Zolf's lips, barely more than a brush, and it leaves his lips tingling for a long moment after he draws back. “Me too, Zolf” he says quietly.

Zolf cups Wilde's cheeks with his hands, and his fingers look so big and rough framing the delicate features. He cranes his neck up to try to kiss Wilde properly, and Wilde meets him halfway, and this time, the kiss is no less sweet, but there's more heat behind it. More intent. Zolf loses himself in the warmth of Wilde's mouth, the careful, searching curl of his tongue against Zolf's, the hands that come up to wind into his hair and keep him close.

“Figured you knew, but I wasn't sure you'd be ready to hear it,” Zolf says against his mouth, keeping his eyes closed.

“I wasn't sure either,” Wilde admits, resting his forehead against Zolf's. “I would not say this is... something I've ever been particularly good at. Sex, fine, sex I know the shape of _perfectly_ well, but this...”

“This is harder,” Zolf agrees. “But we'll figure it out.” Wilde grins at him. They're so close that he's going a bit cross-eyed to keep looking Wilde in the eye, but it's worth it, to see the way he's lighting up, his whole body relaxing into their shared space. “Like you said.”

“We're good at that,” Wilde agrees.

Zolf tries to kiss him again, but the smile on his face is too wide, and after a moment, he finds himself laughing a little, too, with the sheer joy and relief bubbling up in him making it too hard to focus on anything else.

“I've never had someone _laugh_ at me kissing them,” Wilde says mildly, drawing back, one eyebrow raised, and he doesn't laugh, but he's biting his lip like he might want to start.

“S'good laughing,” Zolf says, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I promise.”

When they tuck in close for bed, fit together like they've always been meant to, Wilde reaches for Zolf's hand around his waist. He curls his fingers around it and kisses the back of it, his mouth lingering for a moment, and Zolf sighs, a soft, contented thing. They're not quite characters in a Campbell, but they're writing their own story here, and it's one that he is starting to find he might love just as much. And if they're lucky, the ending might be the same.

They've just got a world to save first.


End file.
